17 Errors & Omissions in Vox's Otherwise Excellent History of King v. Burwell

Forbes ^ | Mar 2, 2015 | Michael Cannon

[Ray76]

This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, one of four legal challenges to an IRS regulation that purports to implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but in fact vastly expands the IRS’s powers beyond the limits imposed by the Act. Just in time for oral arguments before the Court, Vox’s Sarah Kliff has produced what I think may be the best history of King v. Burwell and related cases I’ve seen. Still, there are a few important errors and omissions....

Kliff reports that all congressional staff involved with the drafting of the PPACA swear they meant to authorize the disputed taxes and subsidies in states with federal Exchanges. She also reports that all journalists who reported on the drafting process swear that every time the topic arose, Democratic staffers always said these provisions would be authorized in states with federal Exchanges. (Well, except these members of Congress and this journalist.)

Kliff neglects to mention that there is absolutely zero contemporaneous evidence of any kind that supports those recollections.

Kliff leaves the reader with the impression that the statutory requirement that subsidy recipients must enroll “through an Exchange established by the State” [ ] was a “drafting error.”

Not even the government makes that claim.

Kliff writes, “The whole point of the federal exchanges, after all, was to make sure Obamacare worked in states that wouldn’t or couldn’t build an exchange of their own.”

How does Kliff know that? This is an assumption, which she appears to make without any contemporaneous support.

I don’t know how Kliff rules out Vanderbilt law professor Jim Blumstein’s alternative theory that the federal Exchanges were nothing more than an “oops” provision to protect the ACA against charges that Congress was commandeering the states.

[Ray76]

Full title: 17 Errors & Omissions in Vox's Otherwise Excellent History of King v. Burwell (Updated)

[mortal19440]

“Kliff reports that all congressional staff involved with the drafting of the PPACA swear they meant to authorize the disputed taxes and subsidies in states with federal Exchanges”.

This is absolutely untrue. The language was clear that States would be responsible for subsidies,not the Feds. This was done to appease Sen Nelson from Nebraska so he would vote for the bill. Now these lying Libs are rewriting History and saying it was a mistake, they meant to say Fed. BS